We’re starting our third season of six meetings of 2010 this Tuesday, 27 April, at Bristol Old Vic, 36 King Street, Bristol, BS1 4DZ. Please remember that you can find an up-to-date list of our forthcoming meetings on the Diary page of our website and the date of our next meeting on the site’s home page in the panel to the right beneath the slideshow.

This season we’re meeting in both the Meeting Room backstage and the Macready Room as listed below. Ask at the reception desk on the right of the theatre’s entrance lobby for directions. Everyone attending meetings pays £1.

Tuesday, 27 April at 7.30pm in the Meeting Room: Spider Flu by Judy Darley
Tonight’s meeting features Judy’s debut 15-minute play: Nina, Derek and Amanda see society collapse around them after an outbreak of Spider Flu. As news of the pandemic comes in, they deal with the stress of its spread in their own ways while isolation brings old desires and frustrations to the surface…

Tuesday, 4 May at 7.30pm in the Macready Room: Open Workshop

Tuesday, 11 May at 7.30pm in the Meeting Room: The Goalkeeper’s Fear of the Shootout by Bruce Fellows
Ray Smart, a goalkeeper at school: the last line of defence; the confident, responsible one; what else would he grow up to be but a copper? But now Ray’s afraid of a goalie’s greatest chance of glory — a shootout. Why? What’s happened? Do the people closest to him know?

More news of Bruce’s radio play below…

Tuesday, 18 May at 7.30pm in the Macready Room: Open Workshop

Tuesday, 25 May at 7.30pm in the Meeting Room: Open Workshop

Tuesday, 1 June at 7.30pm in the Meeting Room: Open Workshop

The Ten-Page Challenge

Ten of you (appropriately) took up the challenge in our curtain-raising competition for 2010. Michael Jenner, the group’s Honorary President, found the first ten pages of The Goalkeeper’s Fear of the Shootout by Bruce Fellows the most compelling script extract from a strong field of entries.

Bruce wins a £50 Amazon gift certificate and — as listed above — you can hear a reading of his completed play at our meeting on 11 May.

Many thanks to everyone who entered and to Michael for judging the Ten-Page Challenge. We’re hoping to bring you another group competition opportunity soon.

Southwest Scriptwriters’ Saturday Shorts success

Produced by longstanding group member Mark Breckon, Saturday Shorts presents script-in-hand performances of six 15-minute plays including three by Southwest Scriptwriters. These are The King was in the Counting House by Gill Kirk, Girl Friend by Steve Lambert and Leda and the Swan by Stephanie Weston. The show also features La Fornarina by Jane Cooper, Travelling by Jane Campion Hoye and Washes Whiter by Nigel Long.

Group committee member Adrian Harris will direct one of the six short plays, which were chosen from more than 200 submissions.

Katherine’s Script Space and Dialogue double

Group member Katherine Mitchell has work featured in both the third series of Script Space readings at the Tobacco Factory in June and in TheatreWorks’ Dialogue event at Salisbury Playhouse next month.

Katherine’s The Most Beautiful Man in the World was one of seven submissions chosen by the Script Space team from 325 entries for its summer Sunday afternoon rehearsed readings at the Tobacco Factory, which this year focus on one-act and shorter plays.

Dry Spell by Nick Booth is next up on 20 June: ‘The once arable land is awash, government help is nowhere to be seen; is this the end of a way of life for the farmers of Lancashire’s Mere?’

The Most Beautiful Man in the World is one of a quartet of shorts on 27 June that also includes Ache by Gareth Jandrell, Beatle’s Big Day Out by Annie Franklin and Cry by Andrew Scott: ‘This bundle of love stories, break-up stories and don’t-want-to-be-alone stories all tackle the thrills and miseries of romance head-on and question what it is we really want.’

TheatreWorks has selected an extract from Katherine’s play Respite for its second Dialogue event at Salisbury Playhouse on Wednesday, 19 May. The evening will include rehearsed readings of sections of all the winning entries and an audience vote will help decide which of them will go forward for a further, complete reading at the Ustinov Theatre in Bath.

Many congratulations to Katherine on her double success!

Steve Lambert’s Still at the Bike Shed

Particular Theatre Company is presenting Still by Steve Lambert at Exeter’s new Bike Shed Theatre until Saturday, 1 May.

Developed with Southwest Scriptwriters, Still was first produced at the Alma Tavern Theatre by the Max Theatre Company in 2007: ‘When a married father picks up a seductive hitchhiker and takes her to his boyhood hiding place, the question is — has he been waiting for her all his life, or she for him?’

Particular Theatre Company is presenting rehearsed readings of short plays by local writers following performances of Still. The after-show readings included Heather Lister’s script Umbrella earlier in the run, making those shows a Southwest Scriptwriters double-bill. Congratulations to both Steve and Heather.

Kate brings World Cup Stories to BBC Two

Southwest Scriptwriter Kate Stonham is part of the production team behind Walk Tall Media’s World Cup Stories, broadcast on BBC Two last Tuesday, 20 April.

World Cup Stories is a children’s documentary ‘celebrating South Africa as it becomes the first nation in Africa to host the FIFA World Cup. Featuring South Africa’s stunning landscapes, architecturally unique stadiums and stark social environmental contrasts, six personal stories provide a window on the world of six very different South African children.’

Instant Wit at the Tobacco Factory

Following the script-in-hand performance of her short play, Leda and the Swan, in Saturday Shorts at the Folk House (see above), Stephanie Weston is back in action — making it up as she goes along this time — in another quick-fire improvised comedy show from Instant Wit at the Tobacco Factory on Sunday, 30 May.

‘There’ll be sketches, songs and general silliness — and all of it based around audience suggestions. And if you’re too shy to shout anything out, well, don’t worry, you’ll have the chance to write things down (anonymously!) in the interval. We’re the ones who’ll look daft, not you! Good suggestions get flying packets of custard, the best a bottle of wine.’

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